Cattle Feeding Behavior and Grazing Habits

Cattle are ruminant animals, meaning they have a complex digestive system that allows them to digest difficult-to-breakdown plant materials. Understanding cattle feeding behavior and grazing habits is important for cattle health and productivity.

In this blog article, we will provide you an in-depth overview of factors influencing cattle diets, grazing patterns, and nutritional needs.

What Do Cattle Eat?

Cattle are natural grazers, meaning the bulk of their diet consists of grasses and other forages. Their preferred feeds are fresh, green, growing pasture plants like grass. However, cattle diets can be diverse depending on availability and nutritional needs.

According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, common cattle feeds include:

• Pasture grasses and legumes
• Hay – grasses and legumes that have been dried for storage
• Silage – fermented, high-moisture stored feeds
• Grain crops like corn, barley, sorghum
• Byproduct feeds like almond hulls or cottonseed
• Supplements like molasses, fats, vitamins

Commercial cattle feeding operations utilize grain-based feeds to maximize growth rates. However, most cattle spend the majority of their life grazing pasture.

Factors Influencing Cattle Feeding Behavior

Cattle diets can vary significantly depending on environmental and physiological factors. These include:

Forage Availability: The types and quantity of vegetation available influences intake. Limited forage availability can restrict intake and cause lower productivity.

Forage Quality: Cattle selectively graze plants highest in protein and nutrients. Changes in pasture quality through the growing season impacts diet selection.

Water availability: Adequate, clean water is essential for health and productivity. Restricted water access limits feeding time and intake.

Weather: Heat, cold, precipitation influence grass growth rates and where cattle choose to graze during the day.

Reproduction Status: Lactating cows have higher nutritional needs. Gestating cows avoid toxic plants.

Understanding these factors allows cattle producers to offer optimal nutrition through pasture management, hay feeding, or supplements.

How Do Cattle Graze?

Cattle are very effective at utilizing grasslands. Their wide muzzle allows them to consume about 36 pounds of forage per day through biting and twisting. When grazing, cattle use their tongue to rip the forage before chewing through it more thoroughly later.

They also spend significant time regurgitating and re-chewing feed to break it down further. This digestive process allows them to digest cellulose.

When allowed to freely graze cattle follow predictable grazing patterns:

Patch grazing: They graze in one area for a period before moving to a new patch. This allows for regrowth.

Selective grazing: Cattle select plants and parts highest in protein, nutrients and palatability while avoiding less nutritious mature, stemmy material.

Repeat grazing: Cattle drift between recently grazed patches optimizing regrowth and plant diversity.

Understanding natural grazing behavior allows cattle producers to offer well-managed, rotated pastures for maximum nutrition with minimum waste.

Nutritional Requirements

A cow’s nutritional needs depend largely on age and production status with requirements increasing during growth, pregnancy and lactation.

According to Florida State University Extension, key nutritional guidelines include:

• Energy: Measured in Megacalories (Mcal). Needed for maintenance, growth, lactation, etc.
• Protein: Necessary for muscle development and milk production. Required levels vary from 7% to 18%.
• Vitamins & Minerals: Essential for health, immunity and performance. Especially important are salt, calcium and phosphorus.

A 1100-pound mature cow requires about 26 pounds of dry matter and 16 Mcal per day for maintenance and activity. Additional nutrients are needed for production:

• Gestating cow in 2nd/3rd trimester requires 14% more nutrients
• Peak milk production in early lactation requires 50% more nutrients

Understanding the unique nutritional requirements across ages and production cycles allows for precisely managed, optimal diets to support desired performance. This may include pasture quality improvements, hay testing, or balancing rations.

Conclusion

In summary, as ruminants, cattle are adapted to digest and thrive on plant-based diets primarily from pasture. Their natural feeding patterns involve patch grazing, selecting the highest-quality parts of available vegetation while avoiding the lower-quality.

Precise nutritional guidelines exist for phases of cattle production to optimize health and productivity. Monitoring environmental factors, forage availability, and understanding cow requirements allows cattle producers to offer the best diets possible through pasture, hay and supplements.

FAQs:

Why is understanding cattle grazing behavior important?

Understanding cattle grazing behavior is important for effectively managing pastures, providing adequate nutrition, and promoting good health. Paying attention to grazing habits allows producers to utilize pasture more efficiently and maximize productivity.

What time of day do cattle prefer to graze?

Cattle are diurnal grazers, meaning they prefer to graze more during the daytime and less at night. The most intensive grazing times are often early morning and late afternoon/early evening. Hot summer weather may shift more grazing to nights.

How do cattle choose which plants and plant parts to graze?

Cattle exhibit selective grazing behaviors – they preferentially choose leafy, vegetative plant parts high in protein and nutrients while avoiding more mature, stemmy plants parts that are lower in nutrients and less digestible. Seasonal changes impact plant nutritional quality and what cattle select.

How can I get my cattle to utilize roughs or areas they normally avoid?

Strategic placement of low-moisture supplements, trace mineral salt blocks or water sources in undergrazed areas can help draw cattle into rougher spots. High traffic areas may also need periodic resting to encourage use of the entire pasture.

What is the main factor limiting voluntary feed intake in grazing cattle?

The physical fill or space that forages take up in the rumen is the main factor limiting how much grass cattle can consume per day. Higher quality, more digestible forages allow for greater intake and energy consumption. Lower quality forage has more rumen fill per unit of energy, limiting total intake.

How does hot summer weather affect cattle grazing patterns and behavior?

Extreme heat stresses cattle, so they tend to spend less time actively grazing during the day. More grazing may take place overnight when temperatures cool down or in shaded areas. Providing shade and cooling options helps encourage normal grazing time even when it’s hot.